Race for the Right Flight Makes for Unfair Fight

Race for the Right Flight Makes for Unfair Fight by Roxanne McDonald

So…if you took booking an imperative plane ticket out of the equation, would the Amazing Racers be better matched? Would the bitching be any less intense or the manipulation be any less obnoxious?

I know this is the goal of a number one reality show, but every g-damned time one of the teams is booked on a later flight, locked out of a flight, or taken off a plane ready to fly, my heart goes surging. Then I, too, start bitching (to myself, as no one else is here), and then start thinking about how ridiculously imbalanced are the opportunities for anyone to win when the airlines sabotage thirty percent of the players.

Yes, flying anywhere these days sucks. Besides having to be searched for the potential terrorist you are—you with your two and a half-inch embroidery scissors—besides having to arrive hours early, besides having to wait hours more…if you

are anyone other than a business person or an “Amazing Race” contestant, forget having a “pleasant flight”.
But if you are an “Amazing Race” player, forget having a fair fight in your favor (or anyone else’s, for it’s a crap shoot) if plane travel is involved.

And it is.

As Rob Mariano remarked a few seasons back, you can be ten hours ahead, in first place, then get on a plane and be neck-and-neck again.

You can also be thirty hours behind any familiar neck.

How is this a fair fight?

Of course, it doesn’t do any justice to the game when somebody cuts in line, somebody else tries to manipulate the airline clerk, or somebody else bogarts the computers, etc., etc..

But I can’t agree with Joe when he admonishes Bill that he is so “not proud right now” after Bill stands outside, between the terminal and the runway, screaming, “You tell that KLM (Kilamanjaro) plane to stop preparing for take-off and let us on right now…” (or maybe that was also-running-late Erik) or just stands there screaming at the KLM plane and waving his

arms as if the pilots will actually have a heart and wait up for the teams who were on a late arriving plane, making them miss their connecting flight.
In fact, I almost understand Charla and Myrna snooping into others’ business in the ticket agency; can almost appreciate how discretely the Beauty Queens tell their agent they are trying to beat this [on a note pad] time; and can almost side with old Rob and Amber (when they did it) and Uchenna and Joyce for passive-aggressively bluffing and saying they are still using the computers they are completely done with…so no one else can get a chance at booking a flight, for the ticket from point A to point B seems to be the worst challenge of all in the “Amazing Race.”

Jesus! I’m exhausted, and I haven’t even left my fat-ass chair.

SirLinksAlot Amazing Race links

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